Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985)

by Lee, India

  “You know why. It’s not like it was some clean cut-off. Gemma Hunter wasn’t just Gemma Hunter, she was some international superstar that I would have to hear about, that I would have to hear from again and again. It didn’t end in high school, it didn’t end four years ago. Every time I saw her face again, whether it was on some blog or some magazine or TV or at my freaking audition, I thought about how she snuck around behind my back and went after you and made me look like the evil one.”

  “Nothing ever happened between us.”

  “Bullshit!” Madison yelled. Through the glass windows of a nearby café, a few faces looked up. Lucas was unfazed.

  “Nothing ever happened between us while you and I were still together.”

  “Hard to believe considering you started dating her the moment I left for school,” Madison muttered bitterly, staring at her nails solely to avoid Lucas’s eyes. Her heart pounded when she felt him wrap his hand over hers, placing it back at her side so she was forced to look at him. Begrudgingly, she did.

  “I admit that I had feelings for her,” he started. “Towards the end of our relationship. I didn’t know what they were yet so I didn’t handle them the right way. I’m sorry for that. But we never did anything. We never crossed the line. And she was with Damian.”

  “You knew she was Queen Bee,” Madison said accusingly. “You kissed her at her party.”

  “I did know,” Lucas nodded. “But I didn’t know the whole time.”

  “Yeah, and you don’t think it’s weird that she told you and kept it a secret from everyone else? You don’t think that she was trying to get close to you despite the fact that she knew you and I were together?”

  “I found out my own. Thanks to the fact that we were neighbors and that Elisa was a diehard fan of Queen Bee. It wasn’t that hard to figure it out once I began to suspect it. She never told me.”

  “She was seeing Tyler while you two were still together. How about that?”

  “I don’t know what happened there.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you?”

  “We were teenagers. Every year that passed between nineteen and where I am now feels like a decade. I hardly recognize who I was then and I’m sure that Gemma would say the same. Nothing that happened then bothers me anymore because it’s not my life now. I left it all and I left it in peace. Why are you having such a hard time separating yourself from all that? What details, what aspects of it all haven’t you already worked out that it’s still bothering you today?”

  Madison stared at him, stunned. Her initial instinct was to slap him, for coming back into her life without warning and thinking he had any right to lecture her, to be so condescending. But instead, she crossed her arms, digging her fingernails into her skin as she took in his words and looked for her own, hoping to answer his questions.

  “I don’t like my life right now,” Madison replied. “Okay? I hate it.” Her own honesty shocked her. She bit her lip, furrowing her brows as she felt her words hang in the air. Lucas watched her as she stood there, feeling more vulnerable than ever.

  “Tell me why.” He continued to look at her as she stood there in silence, still taken aback by the words that had slipped from her mouth.

  “I was supposed to be something.”

  “And you are,” Lucas laughed. “You’re many things. Mostly good things.”

  Madison smirked, actually appreciating Lucas’s breeziness about everything. She’d always hated and loved it and now, she loved it. It was what she needed to bring herself down from her erratic thoughts.

  “I was in a movie that was a sensation. I was good. I knew this myself but all the reviews and the critics, they confirmed that for me. I know I was good and I’m still good. I know that right now, I should be on a set somewhere with bigger names than Tyler Chase and Liam Brody, doing all that again. But I’m not.”

  “Carbine was your first role,” Lucas said. “That was your first role. Most people have to work for a decade before they get anything even close to that, if at all. You already got to skip all the work it takes to get to that kind of movie.”

  “Which is why I should have something right now. I just auditioned for a daytime soap opera yesterday, do you know how many steps back that is for me?”

  “Still sounds like a job to me.”

  “Yeah, but I shouldn’t be taking a job like that considering I’ve been in a movie like Carbine.”

  “Why?” Lucas asked, raising an eyebrow. Madison stopped, swallowing her response. She knew what she wanted to blurt out but she also knew how stupid it would make her sound. Because it’s beneath me.

  “I’ve been on dozens upon dozens of auditions this past year,” Madison said, carefully. “This is the first callback I’ve gotten.”

  “Well then, great. Congratulations,” Lucas said genuinely. “You got a callback, finally. Shouldn’t we be celebrating?”

  “It’s not enough for me.”

  “Why?” Again, Lucas raised his eyebrow. Madison cocked her head. She would have laughed if she weren’t still so upset.

  “Because it took a year. A year to get to a callback for some shitty show that no one I know has ever watched. And like you said, a year is like a decade now.”

  “No,” Lucas shook his head. “I said every year that passed between graduation and now has been a decade in the sense that I’ve learned that much more with every one that goes by. But when it comes to the passing of actual time, a year feels like a day. It’s forever and nothing at the same time. Like I said, it takes some people a decade to get to the point where you are now and you’re complaining about one kind of bad year? You’re complaining that you just got a callback for a major soap opera? It doesn’t matter that you don’t like the show, many people do and many people would love to be on it and have that be their job. Who says you have to stop there? Your next step isn’t necessarily your final step. That part is entirely up to you.”

  “But there are things that are not up to me. There are things like my stupid high school ‘history’ with Gemma Hunter that’s following me around and messing with my reputation. I lost out on potentially great jobs because her fans have dragged my name through the mud. You should be asking Gemma why she hasn’t gotten over it.”

  “Gemma can’t control her fans and her fans only have so much control over your reputation. With my limited knowledge on celebrities, I’m pretty sure there are people out there who have done far worse than what you’ve been rumored to do and gone on to have A-list careers.”

  “Why are you still defending her?”

  “Why are you still making her your scapegoat?” Lucas countered with a slight shake of the head.

  “Because,” Madison sputtered. “Because I worked really hard to get that part in Carbine. And I worked really hard to do a good job as Dakota. And I worked really hard to be civil with her and not blow her cover as some goody two shoes which I easily could have.”

  “Did you work hard to get the part in Carbine? Were you like one of the other girls that was probably waiting tables at two different restaurants while auditioning and paying off student loans or were you some girl who got called in because her YouTube video happened to go viral?”

  “Excuse me?” Madison practically shrieked. She had had enough of Lucas’s holier-than-thou attitude. She couldn’t believe the way he was treating her. He grabbed her hand before she could back away. She felt her heart race.

  “I don’t doubt that you were a hard worker on set. And not saying anything about your history with Gemma, no matter how much you may have wanted to, is exactly the type of class and elegance I’d expect of you,” Lucas said, calmly. “It was what made me fall for you to begin with. You were so poised and confident, so self-assured. You were put together in a way that no other high school girl was – I mean, hell, you were more put together then than most adults are today. But that’s also because you never had any reason to doubt yourself. You were blessed with natural beauty, talent, and intelligence and you were con
stantly recognized for it. You were charismatic and charming and fun to be around. I was the luckiest guy in the world that I even caught your eye, let alone be your boyfriend. In every sense of the word, you’re perfect.”

  “Where are you going with this?” Madison laughed. “If you’re just trying to keep me from leaving, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

  “That’s because nothing I said about you was something you didn’t know about yourself already,” Lucas replied. Madison pulled her hand from his, crossing her arms again. “And knowing what you know about yourself, it’s that much more frustrating when things don’t go your way.”

  “Are you calling me a brat?”

  “I am, yes,” Lucas smiled. She froze, staring at him. There was no malice in his response, but he didn’t seem to be joking either. “But don’t worry, the term’s relative.”

  “You better explain yourself before I slap you.”

  “Well,” he began. “I think it’s only natural for us to take what we have for granted and compare ourselves to what we’re surrounded by. Back in Beauford, it was tough to watch my family struggle and move their money around just so we could keep our house when it seemed like everyone else around me was more than willing to drop a grand on a designer dog collar. We were all working for hours on end just to get through all the bills and ultimately, the debt before we were forced out of Beauford altogether. Compared to everyone else, it sometimes felt like I had it pretty bad. Hearing people cry over their parents buying them the wrong car for their birthday was absolutely unreal to me. But then when I started teaching outside of Phuket, I stayed in what was considered decent housing with another teacher. Water pressure was low if it could be called pressure at all and our plumbing was pretty questionable. It was kind of luck whether or not the toilet would flush that day. Our walls would mold from the humidity and sometimes even crack and as a result, we kind of a had a lizard issue.”

  “Seriously?” Madison laughed, genuinely surprised by Lucas’s living conditions. “And you put up with that for two years?”

  “I felt bratty for about a month while I missed air conditioning and proper plumbing on an hourly basis. Then I adjusted and got used to it then wondered how I had ever taken anything I had for granted at all. Sometimes you don’t recognize what you have until you don’t have it anymore.”

  “Alright, Lucas,” Madison sighed, smiling despite herself. “Enough with the talking in circles. Just say what you want to say to me. Let’s skip the lesson and get to the point. I won’t explode. I won’t run away. I won’t slap you. Just talk.”

  “In the past, your idea of hard work was showing up at the right place at the right time. That was about as much effort as you would put into anything, because for awhile, that was all you needed. You could trust your beauty and charm and talent to take care of the rest. The issue now isn’t that you’ve run out of luck because luck doesn’t really exist. Luck is just being prepared for opportunity and once upon a time, you were able to rely on the things that just came natural to you.”

  “And if that theory were true, what’s happening to me now?”

  “Madison, you’re playing with the big guns now. You’re not in some small town in some small high school. You were thrown into a world where there are now thousands of girls who are as beautiful and charming and talented as you, most of whom probably wouldn’t throw in the towel and call it a night after just one year. Your dozens of auditions are nothing compared to the hundreds that they’ve been on. Your one role in a critically acclaimed movie means more than the handful of student films on their resumes. You’re already ten steps ahead of everyone else and just because you’re twenty behind the people that you want to be doesn’t mean you should stop now. All that has ‘happened to you’ is that things got a little harder. All that means is that now you have to put just a little more effort into everything. That doesn’t sound so bad to me. So why’s it so bad for you?”

  ~

  Madison woke up, once again alone in someone else’s bed. She had gone home with Lucas, wrapped up in the thoughts he had stirred in her, suddenly unable to leave his side. She texted Chrissy and Claire who had unfortunately gotten home in time to catch her Pop Dinner ambush and were concerned for her well-being, informing them that she wouldn’t be staying with them that night without even knowing if she was welcomed to stay at Lucas’s.

  But being the gentleman that she remembered him to be, it wasn’t a question of whether or not it was okay for her to stay but whether or not she preferred the foam pillow or the feather one. Lucas gave her his bedroom and opted to sleep in the common space, explaining that his roommate, Jack, would probably embarrass himself if he found a beautiful woman randomly crashing on their couch with no explanation. She knew the real reason was because he was too polite to allow her to sleep anywhere but a proper bed, but also probably wanted to avoid the awkward conversation of whether or not it was okay to sleep in it together considering their history.

  The sun beamed in through a dent in his blinds, casting just enough light for her to look around Lucas’s bedroom. It was pretty bare and lacked the boyish, lived-in charm of his room in Beauford. The walls were white, save for a single panel of exposed brick behind his mattress. A pile of books were neatly stacked atop a desk made of unfinished reclaimed wood and piping, clearly the focal point of his space. A black, rolling suitcase stood beside it.

  She rolled out of bed, noticing that the smell of spices in her hair had been replaced with Lucas’s familiar scent. It was the only thing about him that was the same. Even his warm hazel eyes, that way he gazed at her that made her feel as if she was being embraced, even that was no longer the same. There was a firmness to him now that made her wonder what had run through his mind in the years since they’d seen each other. He had always been quietly confident and mature beyond his years, but it was subtle then and it was far from that now.

  Madison pulled down the hem of her dress and smoothed the fabric out. Instinctively, she looked for a mirror but there was just about nothing reflective in Lucas’s room. She slipped out of the bedroom and found that to be the case in the living room as well. On the couch was Lucas’s pillow and a blanket that had already been folded neatly and draped over the armrest.

  “Wow,” a voice said. Madison spun around to see a scrawny guy in a t-shirt and boxers with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. “You’re Dakota.”

  “Yes, I am,” she laughed, watching as the guy stood there, too stunned to care about the toothpaste foam that clung to the corners of his mouth. “Well, no, I mean, I played her but I’m actually Madison Lennox.”

  “I’m Jack and I love Carbine,” he said with the same weight of a first-timer at alcoholics anonymous. Madison smiled at his choice to use the present tense, as if he was actively loving the movie as they spoke. “Are you lost? Do you know where you are right now? This isn’t your home as far as I know…”

  “Yes, I know where I am,” Madison replied. “I’m Lucas’s friend.”

  “How has he never mentioned that you two are friends?” Jack exclaimed, retreating into the bathroom to quickly rinse out his mouth. He came back out with a towel and a pair of glasses. “He knows I love the movie. It seems like it would be, I don’t know, natural conversation to bring it up.”

  “I don’t know,” she scrunched up her nose as she thought about it. “He’s weird like that.”

  “He is, isn’t he?” Jack nodded, pushing his glasses up his nose. “But I like him. He’s the best roommate I’ve ever had. Super chill and clean. A little bit on the quiet side, but when he talks, everything that comes out is a gem.”

  Madison reflected on her own conversation with Lucas the night before. He was definitely more talkative than usual and more forthright than she ever thought he could be. Nearly all of his words had stung her in one way or another, but a night of restful sleep had soothed the wounds they caused and were already healing.

  “Did Lucas go to work… or…? Do you know
where he is?” Madison asked, awkwardly gesturing at the front door.

  “I think I heard him out on the stoop, you should go check there,” Jack replied. “But you should also come hang out more often and when I have friends over. So that they know I met you.”

  “Or we could take a picture together as proof.”

  “Really?” Jack’s face lit up as he grabbed his phone off the counter. “I thought it was like, uncouth, to ask.” He walked over to Madison, awkwardly standing beside her and reaching his arm out as far as he could to take the photo. Madison reached her arm around his waist, pulling herself into him. She could feel the heat rise in his cheeks as she pressed her face to his. It had been awhile since she’d taken a fan photo and even longer since she was happy to do so. She looked at her face on the screen of Jack’s iPhone. Her makeup had wiped off and her hair was a little rumpled, but there was a glow in her cheeks that had been absent for some time.

  Jack snapped the picture, backing away from Madison to inspect his shot. He smiled, clearly satisfied before flashing his appreciative grin up at her.

  “I’m actually an aspiring actor,” Jack said. He pursed his lip immediately after. “I hate saying that because I feel like everyone is, sometimes. What I really am is a barista that takes improv classes.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Madison replied, feeling Lucas’s words to her just the night before tumble out of her mouth. “I’m… somewhat aspiring myself.”

  “What?” Jack laughed. “You were in a movie with Liam Brody, I think that officially removes you from the ‘aspiring’ category.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound so… I don’t know. I’m sorry,” Madison shook her head. “I know. Yes, I was in a great movie and I’m thankful for that. But I haven’t booked a job since. And I’d like to. That’s all I meant.”

  “No, I understand,” Jack waved his hand as if to do away with her apology. “I was just messing with you. It’s a tough industry no matter where you are in the process, I understand. Lucas doesn’t talk much, but I do, and he seems to not mind listening. He’s heard all my trials and tribulations and the whining over all the competition and the lack of progress and blah blah.” Madison nodded. She suddenly realized why Lucas seemed to have firsthand knowledge of what it was like to be a struggling actor.